On Saturday, December, 5, 2009, six constituent members (Tim Barr, Calenthia Dowdy, Brenda Zook Friesen, Karissa Loewen Ortman, Yvonne Platts, and Tobin Miller Shearer) met with Ann Hershberger, MCC U.S. board chair; Herman Bontrager, MCC bi-national board chair; Arli Klassen, MCC bi-national executive director; and Rolando Santiago, MCC U.S. executive director in a meeting facilitated by Ewuare Osayande, an anti-racism writer, organizer, and poet, and Marcus Smucker, a Mennonite mediator and church conflict consultant. We met from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the offices of MCC East Coast located in the Oxford Circle Mennonite Church complex in Philadelphia, PA.
After time spent reporting by both MCC administrators and the constituents, our conversation settled on the three original stipulations in the letter submitted on May 26, 2009. We collectively agreed that another anti-racism audit was not needed at this time but that implementation of past studies and reports is far more essential. While we stressed the importance of freeing up staff members time to work effectively at anti-racism inside the institution, we as signers did not feel that was a point about which we needed additional discussion. We could not reach agreement, however, on the implementation of structural accountability to oppressed communities of color.
MCC administrators and chairs did agree to take action on four points within the next three months:
1) actualize accountability committees for MCC US and MCC bi-national that will meet with the anti-racism coordinator position in MCC currently held by Rick Derksen;
2) hold an organization-wide gathering of people of color within MCC for those so interested;
3) ask Mennonite Church U.S.A. to have one or two of their delegates to the MCC bi-national delegate body be appointed by existing racial/ethic caucuses in that denomination;
4) increase the number of reference groups for MCC bi-national’s country programs and the number of reference groups for MCC U.S.’s program reference groups.
While members of the group of constituent members affirmed these steps, we did not feel that they answered our call for the executive committees of MCC U.S., Bi-national, and Canada to make themselves structurally accountable for their anti-racist actions to independent groups of people of color who are knowledgeable about MCC in North America and able to identify and articulate institutional racism. As a result, we chose not to withdraw our request for withholding fifty percent of contributions to MCC at this time.
MCC administrators and board chairs did ask us for more detailed information on what such accountability relationships would look like and we have agreed to consider that request in the next weeks.
Your feedback and questions are welcome as discern how best to proceed from this point forward.
